Hughes Communications India (HCIL), a subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems today announced that it has reached a milestone of 10,000 operational VSATs with the ministry of finance (MoF) ATM project since the project commenced rollout in September 2012.

To increase the penetration of banking services, the finance ministry has favoured setting up white label ATMs in the country, as such ATMs will help bring banking services to the most remote places.

Hughes also announced the first ever deployment of white label ATMs in the country, powered by the Hughes VSAT broadband satellite solution. Currently, there are 500 operational VSAT deployments of white label ATMs in various states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The ministry of finance project is part of one of the largest outsourcing deals in the financial sector, under which the MoF and a consortium of all public sector banks of India have contracted with nine different multi service providers (MSPs) to install and manage a total of 63,000 off-site and on-site ATMs across urban and rural India for an eight-year period.

When complete, this initiative is expected to increase India’s ATM density by over 60 percent, thus helping meet the goals of financial inclusion and penetration of banking services, ensuring that bank ATM machines reliably deliver cash in the most remote areas and deliver e-government services to citizens directly.

Shivaji Chatterjee, head enterprise and business head, HCIL said, “India is an under-penetrated ATM market with only 98 ATMs for every 10 lakh of population (1 million). Our focused approach and effort towards financial inclusion helped reach this milestone of 10,000 operational VSATs for MoF. This further reinforces the undisputed leadership of Hughes in the banking and POS/ATM/retail domains and is testimony to the significance of satellite networking that has become the backbone of connectivity for the Indian banking industry.”

“Hughes India has now completed a landmark 80,000 operational VSATs on its shared hub, providing secure satellite connectivity with uptimes of greater than 99.5 percent and enabling 24×7 banking services through the length and breadth of the country,” added Chatterjee.